


Devils Roll the Dice

by angellwings



Series: (You Are) What You Love [1]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, One Shot, Romance, set during 116
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 02:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20631887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angellwings/pseuds/angellwings
Summary: Part 1 of an 18 part series of Lyatt one shots based on Taylor Swift’s new album “Lover.”Set during the S1 finale, Lucy’s thoughts about what’s happened between her and Wyatt and how she feels as they’re reunited after their trip to DC.





	Devils Roll the Dice

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N: **So I decided to write a lyatt one shot for each track of Taylor Swift's new album "Lover". Yep, if you know me at all then that's probably inevitable. These one shots will be canon and take place from the end of S1 and continue past the S2 two part finale. Here's the first one. It's set during 116, after Wyatt leaves Lucy in the past with Flynn. It's a little short but I'm a bit rusty. Hopefully it's okay.
> 
> Happy reading!
> 
> Angellwings
> 
> * * *

* * *

"Devils roll the dice,

Angels roll their eyes.

What doesn't kill me makes me want you more."

-Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift

* * *

She should know better. Correction: she _does_ know better. Didn't she learn this lesson with Jonas already? Never give all you have to someone who won't take it. It's a waste of a perfectly good heart.

Although, this feeling growing steadily in her chest as the days fly by reaches far deeper than her feelings for Jonas ever did. This love has roots and they're digging their way through her entire body — coiling around every vital part of her. If she has to rip it out then it will take pieces of her with it.

But she can't stunt its growth. She's tried. Every time he's infuriated her she's held onto that feeling; intending to use it as kindling to burn up the roots. It never works. Somehow, the more hard headed he is, the more the affection spreads.

She's destined for disaster and she knows it. He can't move on as long as he lives with ghosts. He can't feel for her what she feels with him if he doesn't know how to let Jessica go.

So why does his dedication to his first love only make her want him more?

It makes no fucking sense.

But here she is. Here she's _been_ since that first night he looked up at her with that irritating grin. That grin was the beginning of her downfall. She's been in a slow descent into hell ever since.

_Except_ in the moments where he wraps his arms around her or encourages her. In _those_ moment hell feels a lot like heaven. That _moment_ in Chicago—or the warehouse just a few days ago. Any time he holds her as tightly as she holds him, she can't help but think _there_ is right where she's supposed to be.

That feeling is _wrong_. It has to be wrong. He was willing to give her up for Jessica. She can't be meant to be in a place where Wyatt doesn't want her.

Can she?

It's awfully hard to tell with the way he continually keeps her close. She really thought he was going to throw her over his shoulder earlier and _make_ _her _leave 1954 with him instead of Flynn. He took a part of her with him when he stepped into the Lifeboat without her and she couldn't have imagined the way he looked at her. He looked as though losing her would break him — as if she held his soul in her hands.

She was hesitant to let him go herself. Her mind spun with horrible scenarios. What if they changed things too much and when she got back he would no longer know her? Could she handle those repercussions? She didn't have time to fully consider that at the time. They had to move and they had to move quickly.

But her thoughts circle that same path now as the Mothership lands in 2017. The ride was blessedly smooth. She feels cheated that Flynn, of all people, gets the luxury tour through time while she's stuck with the economy package. She can't be too mad at him though. He kept her alive and gave her a burner phone with three numbers programmed in. His. Christopher's. And _Wyatt_'s.

Professionally speaking, she should call Christopher first. But maybe Rittenhouse still has her. Surely, she found a way out but maybe to stay on the safe side…

She should call Wyatt.

Or at least that's the reason she uses to ease her guilty conscience.

The phone is ringing as she walks, before she can think better of it.

He answers on the first ring.

"Lucy?"

He sounds preoccupied with worry.

"It's me. H—how did you know it was me?"

There's a sigh of relief on the other end. "I didn't. I just wanted it to be you."

He _wanted_ it to be? Does that imply what she thinks it does? His concern for her only intensifies what she felt while she watched that Lifeboat hatch close hours ago. How exactly is she supposed to keep herself from falling for him? He's not making this any easier for her.

He never does.

Silence overtakes the line. Neither knows how to continue. Wyatt clears his throat and winces audibly. Before he decides to fill the pause between them.

"How close are you to UCSF?" Wyatt asks.

The medical center? Not very. Flynn parked the Mothership in yet another abandoned warehouse. But as she's walking several blocks toward civilization, she can see a cab parked up ahead. She might still have some cash in her newly vintage purse from another century. She glances around to locate her surroundings.

"Twenty minutes," she answers. She doesn't tell him that it's only twenty minutes _if_ her driver is willing to break the sound barrier.

"You know the coffee shop a couple blocks over?"

"Martha & Brothers, yeah."

"That's where I'll be. We'll talk more then."

In person. Where there's less risk of being tracked or recorded. He doesn't have to say that's why, she just knows. When had this become her life?

"Okay," she answers as she starts to hang up.

"Just—hold on, wait."

Her reflexes have never been faster. The sound of his voice had her scrambling to press the phone back to her ear.

"You're okay, right?" He asks.

"I'm fine."

"Lucy." His voice is wavers the same way it had before they parted ways and yet it sounds admonishing. He's afraid she's not telling him the truth.

"Honestly, Wyatt. I'm _fine_."

"You better be," he replies softly. "Twenty minutes?"

"Twenty minutes."

"Understood."

And then he's gone. The line's dead. Lucy hails the cab and on the ride she borrows a pen. She writes down the number Flynn saved in the phone for himself, sets the phone back to factory settings, and leaves it on the backseat. When the car stops, she tosses the last of her cash at the driver and then barrels into the coffee shop.

It's only been a handful of hours but being separated from Wyatt in the middle of clandestine cults and national security threats has left her suffering from a strange sort of vertigo. She feels like she's free falling and he's the only thing that can stop her. Despite the knowledge that he doesn't return her feelings — can't return her feelings — he's become her tether. She's not sure when that happened. Wasn't even aware it had until he finally turned and walked away from her in 1954.

She releases a breath as she skids to a stop. He's there, hunkered down at a small round table for two. His head swivels as though he senses her and in an instant his anxious blue irises meet her brown ones. The air thickens and then disperses. She doesn't generally romanticize anything besides history, and maybe she's fooling herself, but the minute their eyes meet the world and the elements right themselves. The air pressure lessens, the temperature increases, and the fog she'd waded through to get to him vanishes.

They meet halfway. She's not entirely sure how she ended up with her feet several inches off the floor. She may have jumped into his arms. It's all a bit of a blur. All she knows is the solid feel of him wrapped around her. Strength, safety, solace.

Yet, conversely, anguish, danger, and weakness.

All the ingredients necessary for a love she shouldn't feel and man she never should have met.

His hand skates between her shoulder blades and his breath tickles the hairs on the back of her neck. "You're okay."

"_You're_ okay," she repeats as she turns her head and presses her cheek into his sturdy frame.

They stay just like that for several moments. For longer than they should. She should let go before her highly logical brain fails her. The longer she has him to herself, the more risk she runs of admitting the unthinkable. Once that admission escapes, she can never take it back. She can't put that on him. She won't put that on him. Not so close to his failed attempt to get Jessica back. If she's honest, she's hoping it'll go away.

End of mission, end of feelings.

Because it can't happen.

It's ill fated, ill timed, ill fitting.

Just..._ill_.

She _won't _admit it out loud.

But in the reassuring quiet of his breath mingling with hers she makes one allowance. She can't say it, but she can think it. She can will him to feel it flowing out of her — through her embrace and the soothing rhythm of her pulse.

A silent statement that he may not ever be ready to hear. Three little words she feels keenly but plans to lock away in the furthest recesses of her psyche. _I love you. _

The worst thing he's never heard.


End file.
